Simon Cooper: The Otter’s Tale (November 2024)

Our book choice for this month was a work of non-fiction relating a year in the life of a female otter from the time she was abandoned by her mother, when judged ready to fend for herself, to when she, in turn, takes her remaining pups beyond their known territory and leaves them.

Simon Cooper is a leading chalkstream conservationist who restored a watermill in Hampshire and runs fishing breaks at his trout lake in addition to his research and writing.

He interweaves the account of Kuschta, as he names her, with the history of otters in the U.K. and the surrounding natural world.

Otters were regarded as vermin to be exterminated because they were thought to be taking too many fish and were hunted to near extinction until they were given protective status in 1978.

In fact, otters kill only what they need for food and do not, like many predators, indulge in surplus killing. They, instinctively, protect their food sources by not over depleting them.

They are still at great risk from pollution, pesticides and traffic.

Although otters bond closely with their mothers as they, particularly the smaller females, stay together for the comparatively long time of a year, the mother sometimes rejects a pup if she is struggling to feed them. This happens to one of Kuschta’s male offspring and it is distressing to read, but this is nature and the author, understanding this, also turns away from the pup.

We all found this book extremely interesting and felt we had learnt much about otters and our precious chalkstreams and all the wildlife they support. It was well-written though some found it more engaging than others in the group. There was a suggestion that it would make a good documentary if combined with film of the otters and at least one person said they would buy a copy of the book to keep and read more of the author’s work.

We awarded The Otter’s Tale 4/5